One Mom's Quest to become an Author

My Novel

When I tell people that I’m a writer, one of their first questions is always, “What’s your book about?” That’s a hard one for me because, as it turns out, I suck at summarizing. Last week I went to a writing workshop in Seattle and was fortunate enough to get to pitch my novel to an agent. Guess what, pitching is basically summarizing your novel. Bummer. Luckily, I pitched to a fantastic agent who managed to understand all my floundering about and she liked my story. She asked to see the full manuscript, which is a great honor for me. Doesn’t mean I’m getting published, but it’s a step.

So, point of all of that rambling is that I’m trying to get better at summarizing. My current novel, WITHIN, is a YA Gothic Fantasy. What that means is its a Fantasy book for Young Adults (although adults can read it too, I happen to love YA books) and it’s set in the Victorian Era, hence the word Gothic.

LUCY GELLING is a seventeen year old girl completely isolated from the outside world of Victorian England. Her adopted family fell into disgrace with the Prince Regent, and now lives in seclusion on the Isle of Man. When JAMES stumbles up the path to her Manor, he is under the impression that it is abandoned and is intending to use it as a hideout. He is trying to outrun a horrible secret that could see him hanging at the end of a noose. Lucy takes a chance and promises to hide James, even though he won’t share the details of his past.

Both lonely, they quickly become friends and begin to develop feelings for each other. James reveals that he is hiding because he killed a boy who was tormenting him at school. Lucy accepts this and shares her secret; she thinks she’s being haunted. She has nightmares that leave her with injuries on waking, and is followed at night by shadows that belong to no one. She has shared this with her family, but they tell her that she is imagining things.

One night she feels compelled by a strain from a violin and in following the sound, sees death’s head with glowing eyes staring at her from an abandoned room. Terrified by the sight, Lucy convinces her nanny to tell her something of the family’s history. She learns that they are not the people she thought they were, but in fact have pasts littered with secrets, lies, and bodies. But even the nanny will not tell Lucy of her birth. James promises to help her find the truth of her past, but the harder they look the more frightening things get for Lucy within the Manor. An attempt on her life finally opens her eyes to the truth; someone or something is out to get her.

James promises to take her away from it all, but can she leave without learning the secrets that her family are holding so close? As the Manor walls begin to close in on her, Lucy may learn that the truth is the most frightening thing of all.

I am currently in the process of querying agents about WITHIN, which means I am looking for a literary agent to represent my work. I will post excerpts from this and my other works here on my blog. Hope you like my summary. If you like my blog, please be kind and register. That way you get emails whenever I post a new blog and you get to comment. Just scroll down to Meta and click on register. You will put in a username and an email and it will send you a link.